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Save money and gain efficacy

For fiscally-minded government agencies, this can be a game-changer. But there are other advantages of the Cloud. For example, it offers a far more reliable and secure environment than legacy on-premises data centers. While this may seem counterintuitive at first, the fact is that the Cloud provides a wealth of backup and recovery options to ensure continuity in the event of a system failure. At the same time, cloud technology employs the latest advanced, AI-powered security solutions.

Most data centers are costly-to-support facilities for delivering mission-critical services. That means hardware and software upgrades are intermittent at best. However, for a cloud provider, failure to continually deploy state-of-the-art technology puts them at a competitive disadvantage by weakening their core business model.

This same competitive drive also leads providers to expand beyond bulk storage and generic compute services to offer highly customized environments for numerous industry verticals, including government entities. As a result, Canadian entities have a wide range of options to choose from when it comes to ensuring crucial factors like data protection, governance, analytics, and residency.

Also read: Let OnX navigate your journey to AWS for government

Optimize resources with a managed solution

Rather than simply migrating data and resources to a third party, organizations can outsource management and optimization of the entire cloud environment to their IT provider. This is a highly effective way to implement a hybrid Cloud made up of virtualized resources locally and at the provider’s location.

With a managed solution, government agencies no longer need to worry about provisioning servers or storage, mapping connectivity, creating virtual machines, or numerous other IT modernization and management tasks. With the proper usage and governance policies in place, a worker who needs resources to run a process can have them instantly and without a lot of bureaucratic complexity.

Read more: Delivering a trustworthy Cloud for government service

Getting started with government IT modernization

While setting up a basic cloud environment is relatively straightforward, establishing the proper controls for an active government agency requires care. In most cases, organizations should follow a four-step process.

1. Evaluate the various options.

No two offerings are alike, so leadership must ensure the Cloud they are considering is optimal for their business objectives. For example, some organizations need more storage capacity while others rely on faster networking. Even individual agencies will have a range of requirements to suit diverse workloads. And, of course, location always matters for performance.

2. Plan a migration strategy.

Begin with a thorough inventory of current workloads and initiatives, followed by detailed plans for each group within the agency. Again, an experienced provider should be able to offer substantial guidance for this process; if not, it might be wise to consider another provider.

3. Prioritize security.

Data in motion is often more vulnerable than data at rest, so take the time to ensure that security is maintained before, during, and after the migration. As mentioned above, backup and recovery are more effective in the Cloud, and costs are so low that many organizations find multiple backup sites preferable.

4. Find an effective partner.

Moving to the Cloud is not a one-time event but the beginning of a new relationship. A cloud provider should be able to deliver continual support for virtually all aspects of the environment and should help guide you through all future upgrades to ensure you are getting maximum value for the taxpayer.

Read the case study: Canada managed AWS environment for services in government

Why OnX?

For too long, government service has been beset by two key complaints: high costs and poor quality. The Cloud provides a solution for agencies of all sizes and government levels to correct both problems at once. Moreover, with the right IT partner, government agencies can outsource IT modernization and focus on serving the taxpayer.

With over three decades of experience, OnX is perfectly positioned to guide government agencies through this process. Our engineers and project managers have deep expertise in all things cloud and are ready to help you streamline your IT operations.

Contact us today to schedule a consultation for your cloud migration.